Opuni case: High Court to hear motion against ruling, referral to SC on Dec 1
On Monday, November 14, the court presided over by retired Justice Honyenuga dismissed an application filed by Dr. Stephen Opuni which sought to restrain him from continuing to preside on his case despite his retirement
The High Court(Criminal Division) is set to hear on December 1, 2022, a motion filed by the former CEO of COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen Opuni which seeks to set aside an earlier ruling which gave Justice Honyenuga the green light to continue to preside on his case despite going on retirement.
Additionally, the court will consider another aspect of the motion which is asking for the proceedings at the High Court to be stayed and the crux of his previous application bothering on Articles 139(1c) and 145(4) relative to the CJ’s extension of Justice Honyenuga’s tenure, referred to the Supreme Court.
On Monday, November 14, the court presided over by retired Justice Honyenuga dismissed an application filed by Dr. Stephen Opuni which sought to restrain him from continuing to preside on his case despite his retirement.
Justice Clemence Honyenuga has been sitting for over four years as an additional High Court Judge overseeing the case between the Republic against Dr. Stephen Opuni and Seidu Agongo prior to his retirement.
Therefore pursuant to Article 145 of the 1992 Constitution, the Chief Justice of the Republic gave Justice Honyenuga six months per the powers bestowed on him under Article 139(1) (c ) extension to enable him to continue to preside on the case.
Moving the motion, counsel for Dr. Opuni deemed the exercise of the Chief Justice’s discretionary powers in the above as unconstitutional as done per Article 144(11).
According to him, such powers relative to the extension of tenure of Supreme Court Justices do not fall under the remit of the Chief Justice powers because he is not the appointing authority rather it is only the president who can exercise such powers.
However, the other parties, thus the state and counsel for Seidu Agongo were yet to be served with the new application.
As a result, the court adjourned the case to November 23 for the parties to be duly served.
When the case was called on the above date, the court was informed that the second applicant had on that morning served the prosecution with their affidavits in support of the motion and vice versa.
As such, the court ordered both the applicants and the respondents to file their responses to the opposing affidavits by November 28, 2022.
Subsequently, the court adjourned proceedings to December 1, 2022, to hear the motion.
Dr. Opuni and Agongo, the CEO of Agricult Ghana Limited, are on trial for allegedly engaging in illegalities in a series of fertilizer transactions which the Attorney-General (A-G) says caused a financial loss of GH¢271.3 million to the state.
They were dragged to court by the A-G in March 2018 on 27 charges, including willfully causing financial loss to the state, defrauding by pretense, contravention of procurement laws, corruption of a public officer, and money laundering.
